Lee Trees HDR

First of all, I'm no HDR expert. I'm not even a big fan of the technique and I have seen too many examples of HDR so badly done that they've hurt my eyes. Last year I bought the Photomatix software that all the experts recommend but I rarely use it. I didn't even use it for the subject of this post - I used the free beta software from http://www.oloneo.com/ which, to my mind, is even better than Photomatix. Get it now while it's still free!

The following therefore is far from a primer on how to produce a HDR image - consider it a novice's notes and feel free to proffer advice. I need it.

Anyhow, I thought a good subject would be the tree lined road by the River Lee near Páirc Ui Chaoimh in Cork city.
 
I set up my camera on the tripod, switched to manual mode and set the aperture to f/8. I then took 3 exposures at 1/4 sec, 1/15 sec and 1 sec respectively. (Expert users would use more exposures and it's important to vary the shutter speeds and not the aperture). This is what they looked like:

I then uploaded them to the Oloneo software and twiddled with the tone-mapping controls until I was happy with the following (some minor cloning of a few distracting elements was done in Photoshop):

It ain't a HDR masterpiece but I'm happy with it and it might just encourage me to go out and shoot some more. Watch this space!